The Battle For Oz: Exitium

24Apr

The court erupted with angry shouts of agreement. They were urging an immediate action to have her banished to the wastelands and they were not backing down. There was nothing she could say or do to convince them otherwise as even her husband did not squeak in her defence. She was done for.

Before the sun could set that day, she was escorted out of the kingdom. A crowd gathered in the streets to bid her farewell, and she had a feeling they would be celebrating once she was gone. That made her even more furious, but she knew her orders for their banishments would only fall on deaf ears.

As she left the happy kingdom behind, most of her feather-skinned guards continued on with her. She told them they could stay and celebrate, but it was more of a threat than a kind offer. Nevertheless, she enjoyed their nervous and silent company.

By the time they reached the black, flat, foul smelling wastelands, her guards found her a large rabbit hole that led to a giant burrow. She wanted to strike them on the head for finding such an unfitting place for her status, but she held her hand back when she found a motherless litter of muttbits curled up among each other.

Muttbits were like dogs, except for their rabbit ears, long whiskers and two sharp front teeth. They were a banished species for their wild and aggressive behaviour. Honestly, she once thought of them revolting but after being able to identify with them, she thought they would make good pets.

She also had an idea… a crazy idea she was not going to let go.

The muttbits were strangely welcoming towards her as she invaded their home, and it was probably because of the raw meat she was feeding them. So while she bonded with her newfound friends, her guards began to make the stinking place liveable. Torches were placed around the dome like burrow and a pile of pillows were stacked up at a corner for her sleepy head. They even sprayed some perfume in the air, hoping to rid the nose scrunching smell.

The burrow itself had a rather high ceiling and plenty of space. It was a suitable place for a home in the wastelands, but she knew she was not staying. How could a royal live in such a God forsaken place? She may be insane as what the court had called her earlier that day, but she was not stupid. This burrow was merely a temporary home until she found a new one; a new palace to be precise.

As she held back her mad urges of reclaiming her throne, she took her time in raising and breeding her muttbits. Two weeks in and she had doubled the number, with half as big as full-grown bears. Her guards were terrified of the muttbits because they would snap violently every time her guards approached them. But when it came to her, they were angels. She was convinced they saw her as their mother, and she soon started calling them her babies.

Once she had raised an army of muttbits, she knew the right time had arrived. She was going to claim the throne and be called queen again. Her muttbits would fight for her and she would regain her power. But she wouldn’t be fighting for the throne of this land, as most people would have expected her to. Instead, she found another land filled with powerful magic she coveted. That land was Oz.

She first learned about Oz from a book in the royal library. It was a place with magical creatures, picturesque mountains, lush forests, and a city built with green glass. Green was not her favourite colour, but jewels were definitely her favourite accessories.

On top of that, there was powerful magic; magic that she could later use to seek revenge on everyone that agreed to have her banished. Oh, wouldn’t that be glorious? she silently asked herself with a smile plastered on her fair face.

With her imaginations floating around her head, she became even more excited. When she could not contain it any longer, she ordered her guards to bring her a small velvet pouch. Of course, no one knew what was in that pouch except her, for if they did she would have been banished much earlier.

The contents of this little pouch were actually stolen from the royal archives, where artefacts of different realms were displayed in glass casings. Weeks before her trial, she snuck into the archives and stole the tail of a winged monkey that was supposedly from Oz. She then had it burnt and mixed with black fairy dust. From the words of different magic books, the powdery substance should take her to Oz, and she was so sure of it.

Rounding up her guards and her muttbits, she placed the small pouch in the centre of the burrow. Everyone was waiting for a special spell of some sort, but instead she ordered, “Burn it!”

The guards who were unfortunate enough to be standing near the torches, pulled the torches out of their holders and walked up to the pouch. As the guards lowered the flames, the pouch immediately caught on fire but nothing expected happened. After a few minutes of nothing, she thought the magic had failed and her chest began to bubble in anger. But when her disappointment was about to burst into fury, a deafening pop startled her angry heart.

The velvet pouch had exploded into a large cloud of dust and the dust began swirling. The air in the burrow was so still that all eyes were locked on the dust in fascination. Unfortunately for the guards in the centre, they only had a brief moment of awe before they were pulled into a rapidly growing tornado. There were screaming and growling, and also a hysterical laughter that was escaping her lips. The magic was working and she couldn’t be happier.

As the tornado burst through the top of the burrow, it swept everyone off their feet. A few seconds after the outburst of the tornado, it died down quickly and the wastelands returned to its usual silence. The only difference was the big hole in the ground that no one would have ever noticed.

Exitium is book 1 in my latest novelette trilogy and it would be released at the end of May. It will also be free to download! To get you excited, I have a slideshow below that will introduce you to some of the characters and the contents of the book. Check it out!

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

As you can see, the book is filled with awesome illustrations that I myself cannot get enough of🙂 I hope that you guys would feel the same way too! To know more you can visit the Facebook page, but for now this should be enough to ‘tease’ you with.

***UPDATE: The Battle For Oz trilogy will be combined into a novel. A crowd-funding project was done to make it possible. Visit HERE to find out more!

33 responses to “The Battle For Oz: Exitium”

Hey, what a great start to your story! I always enjoy a re-enivisioned version of a classic. I like how your version gets the drama moving quickly and your Alice seems really dynamic. Will be interested to see how it plays out.

This is really exciting!
I loved it; I thought it was incredible!
If you wouldn’t mind, I would love to give you some suggestions? I hope they don’t offend you?
I would have loved to have a description of this character, and possibly a name? And also some dialogue? Even it was someone sentencing her out of the Kingdom and down the ‘Rabbit Hole’ so to speak, who is exactly? A Queen, not not a Queen? What is her name; is it Alice? Haha, so many questions.
But I do think that the easiest thing that you could add to this to make it EVEN better is dialogue, picture is like a movie; the first seen would only be here walking, adding bits and bops to create a potion and getting swept away. If we had dialogue, then it would be so much more intense and even more exciting.
Have to say I am hooked already though!
Hope that you are open to some critique!😀 ^_^

This character remains anonymous until chapter 10, so no name and barely any description. I wanted to keep her unknown and leave readers guessing. If not, I wouldn’t be so stingy with information🙂

Your suggestions were actually suggested by another author previously. Strange though, because readers who read the first part of the book enjoyed the lack of information. Makes me wonder, do authors and readers have a different view point on how a story should be written? What do you think?

Anyway, thank you for giving this a read and leaving a comment. Really appreciate it!